We Are Our Actions
The thing about the healing spiral is that from a certain vantage point, you start to be able to understand where everyone is coming from. You understand the patterns, the whys and the hows, the intentions, and the pure, loving soul beneath. This level of awareness is dangerous to attempt to force before you’re ready, though—before you’re ready, the difference between intention and action is too murky to navigate. It can keep you from upholding the boundaries of distance. It can keep you from healing.
Because of the nature of toxic relationships— the denial, the deflection, the gaslighting— it can be tough to respond to people’s actions as opposed to their words.
Before my healing, I took everyone at face value. That’s not even completely accurate. I took everyone at the core of them that I could sense underneath. The loving spirit, the glowing potential. They could look me in the eye and say “I am a terrible person” with the kind of conviction that would make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I would reassure them that they weren’t, even as they were stabbing me in the back. It took me years sometimes to see the truth of someone’s actions—to understand that just because I could intuit why someone was behaving in a way that was causing me harm, didn’t mean I had to put up with it.
When I think of the people who have pulled away from me, those who were hurt by my lack of ability to receive love, my attraction and devotion, and my prioritization of less healthy people over them, I get it. I know my intentions. I know I was doing my best. I know the way my traumas influenced my choices, and that I was operating from a dysfunctional place. I was in incredible pain. I was barely surviving. I couldn’t always think my decisions all the way through. I was so dissociated and so sure that I was inconsequential that I didn’t even realize anyone noticed what I was doing, that anyone cared. I was asleep at the wheel. I know, after so much self-reflection and radical self-acceptance that my intentions didn’t matter, the ways I was struggling didn’t matter, my actions did. And that’s what I have to live with.
Holding someone accountable for their actions is not the same thing as holding a grudge. It’s a logical, necessary, and self-loving thing. It’s none of your business, really, if someone has changed. If you choose to maintain your distance because of things done in the past, if you have no interest in checking if the person has changed and would do better by you, if you are sure they haven’t, it’s ok to stay away. It’s ok to protect your peace.
Our actions are our responsibility. Once you start to heal, you become more conscious of your actions. You move more carefully through life, or maybe a better way to say it is that you move with more care. You think your actions through, you soothe the meltdown-having-triggered inner child, and you respond instead of reacting. Your best gets better and better.
You can see your past actions with the HD vision of hindsight, of knowing better. You can hold space for the wounded you, without excusing or deflecting responsibility for your actions. And this leads to more compassion for those that have wronged you. This helps you release resentment. This helps you let go. This helps you understand why someone you hurt might be lost to you, and, while you wish you could show them your growth, you know you’re not entitled to that.
Get your words, intentions, and actions in alignment. Speak carefully, move lovingly, and consider the marks you’re leaving. Are they kisses or scars? Become a person of integrity. Say what you mean, and walk your talk. After all, we are our actions.
